Saturday, November 10, 2007

Eduwonkette on the "statistical malpractice" of this administration

Check out the telling critique of the new school grading system from Eduwonkette, an astute new blogger:

"Earlier this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg flexed his muscles by threatening to close F schools as early as June. He quipped, "Is this a wake-up call for the people who work there? You betcha."

Through analyzing these data, I've concluded that the people in need of a wake-up call work not at F schools, but at the NYC Department of Education....There are five reasons the report cards might kindly be called statistical malpractice".

One statistical anomaly she points to: the grades received by the schools that run from 6-12th grades. Of the 33 schools, 22 have different grades at the middle and high school level -- many of them sharply different. Examples?

"Consider the Academy of Environmental Science - its high school got a C, but its middle school got an F. At HostosLincolnAcademy of Science, the middle school got a D, but the high school got a B. At the BronxSchool for Law, Government, and Justice, the middle school got an F, but the high school got a C."

Clearly the grades these schools received reveal nothing useful about the leadership or the overall quality of the school, as the administration would maintain.